THE WANDERER, MAY 17, 2007
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Bleak Prospects
The announced Republican presidential candidates had
their, er, debate, on MSNBC, with Chris Matthews
presiding like a sheepdog. No opening or closing
statements, just quick responses, with lots of barking.
In such a format, so early in the race, it seems
rather pointless to speak of winners and losers, but Mitt
Romney's team was understandably elated. Romney showed
impressive poise, fielding questions deftly and probably
disarming many viewers' misgivings about his Mormon
religion; as an old Michigander who vividly remembers his
maladroit father, Gov. George Romney, I could hardly
believe this was George's son.
The old man, a "moderate" Republican (remember
them?), is still best known for destroying his own
presidential ambitions in 1968 with a single word: He
said he'd been "brainwashed" by the military into
supporting the Vietnam War.
That episode obviously taught Mitt a lesson he has
never forgotten.
John McCain, on the other hand, struck me as weary
and worn out, a spent force. The days of the Straight
Talk Express are long gone. He has become an apologist
for a lost cause, and his recent foray into darkest
Baghdad made him look absurd. Stuck with a lot of
positions that may once have seemed feisty, he now
excites more pity than enthusiasm.
The evening's comedy was provided by Rudy Giuliani,
who is also stuck with positions that made him a winner
in the Big Apple, but fail to grab Ma and Pa Kettle in
the heartland. Knowing this, he tripped all over his
shoelaces trying to "clarify" his views on abortion,
which he now says he hates but believes is a decision
that each woman must be free to make for herself though
he would encourage her not to and he believes in
federalism and would appoint judges who might or might
not reverse Roe v. Wade because he is a strict
constructionist. Or words (many, many words) to that
effect.
The pundits all had a good belly laugh at his
desperate wriggling, impassioned self-contradiction, and
garrulously transparent hypocrisy. He seemed to be
wearing an invisible bad toupee. Something tells me his
campaign is headed downhill.
The candidate who did acquit himself honorably was,
as I expected, Ron Paul of Texas, the one real
conservative in the lot. He was also the only one who
clearly opposed the Iraq War and raised the subject of
the U.S. Constitution. Paul had not come to waffle. He
had barely shown up in the pre-debate polls, but his
small following is ardent, and he did surprisingly well
in the polls taken after the, er, debate.
Paul's forthright presence was the only thing that
made it a debate at all. The others all invoked the
sacred name of Reagan and avoided the name of Bush, as if
equally afraid of being identified with him and of being
seen as renegades to the GOP.
What the evening showed was that George W. Bush has
put his party in an extremely awkward posture. In a way,
even the abominable Giuliani merely reflects this fact:
Bush has sacrificed the post-Reagan anti-abortion party
consensus to the Iraq War, just when the whole country
was finally coming around.
And if Giuliani should somehow win the GOP
presidential nomination next year, both major parties
will offer pro-abortion candidates, and Republican
defections will ensure a Democratic victory. Could the
GOP even survive that?
The Darwinian Trap
The pundits also enjoyed a hearty laugh when three
of the Republicans said they didn't believe in the theory
of evolution. Darwinism is of course one of those things
Everybody Knows, except perhaps the aforementioned Ma and
Pa Kettle.
As is often the case, however, Everybody "Knows"
this only in the sense that few dare to question it,
though few actually think about it. It is really one of
those received ideas that has been dinned into us until
it has come to seem self-evident, like the alleged
superiority of democracy to all other forms of
government. How can it possibly be false?
But ask people =how= they know it, and you quickly
find that they simply accept it on sheer faith. That
disembodied god Science, the ultimate authority, has
spoken. The social pressure to assent to it is intense.
Millions of "educated" people can't even imagine doubting
it. And besides, who wants to be smirked at?
Yet Darwinism has many intelligent critics, some of
whom are scientists, and others who rely on simple common
sense. The latter include C.S. Lewis in his classic
MIRACLES: A PRELIMINARY STUDY and Ann Coulter in her
recent best-seller, GODLESS: THE CHURCH OF LIBERALISM.
To these I would add DARWINIAN FAIRYTALES (just
republished by Encounter) written by the late Australian
philosopher David Stove, himself an atheist who rejects
Darwinism as nonsense on its face that -- never mind the
fossil record -- can't withstand the most obvious tests
of its cogency.
After all, Darwin's thesis of a "ruthless" "struggle
for survival" purports to be not a mere fact about the
prehistoric past, but a scientific law, a "universal
generalization," true always and everywhere, as men, like
all other species, compete for a limited supply of food,
and so forth.
Thus if it was ever true, it was always true and
always must and will be. So it must also be true today.
But is it? Obviously not. We are far more cooperative
than competitive in the horrifyingly ruthless way that
Darwin says it is our very nature to be. Every hospital,
charity, and even family refutes the whole batty idea.
According to his theory, we should not only neglect
our own children -- with whom, after all, we must compete
for food -- but eat them too! Darwinians have tried to
dodge these logical implications of the theory, and some
have even argued against charities and relief programs on
grounds that they preserve the "unfit" -- which is
exactly what they are supposed to do. There is no reason,
place, or explanation for mercy in this absurd view.
But such is the hypnotic power of the false but
clear idea. In that respect, Darwinism is like Calvinism
or Communism, but far more successful as a circular trap
for the modern mind.
This is a bold, breathtaking, exhilarating book that
daringly attacks its target in its very stronghold, just
where Everybody (or nearly Everybody) assumes it to be
safe, strong, and impregnable. In fact, Stove insists,
the idea is "mad"; and he never lets up. The result is a
book that is not only trenchant but often very, very
funny.
+ + +
"In a nutshell, Phil Donahue's philosophy boils down
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